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U.S. cities opt to ditch their off-street parking minimums

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Re: U.S. cities opt to ditch their off-street parking minimums

#291

Post by hightrix »

thelastgallon wrote: post #116

Lot of comments on building public transit first, before removing parking minimums. Public transit takes forever to build and its impossible to build usable transit with suburban sprawl. Usable transit --> reach destination in a reasonable time. Instead of public transit, cities should encourage Uber/Lyft. Car payments + insurance + gas + repairs/maintenance + parking might be close to $800 - $1000/month for most peo…

I own my car outright. I do my own oil changes and other minor maintenance. My only consistent cost is gas.

No way in hell could you get me to agree to give up my car and use rentals/Uber/Lyft for everything. As a home owner, Uber and Lyft would fit my need about 50% of the time, maybe less, as I can’t run to Home Depot to pick up a load of rock/mulch/etc in an Uber. Sure, I could rent one of their trucks, but now I’m paying for an Uber both ways, and the rental truck, just to do a quick run to Home Depot.

I understand this may work for people in densely populated areas. But for the vast majority of everyone in the US, this would not be possible.

Re: U.S. cities opt to ditch their off-street parking minimums

#292

Post by autoexec »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #174
autoexec wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There is zero evidence for this. When most people need something, and there is suddenly a much smaller supply of that thing, prices for the now scarce but still needed thing tend to increase. That's basically self-evident. If you have evidence that shows otherwise please feel free to provide it. I suspect that if examples showing otherwise exist at all they won't be remotely representative of the situation these ci…

> When most people need something, and there is suddenly a much smaller supply of that thing Yes. We have rising, elastic house and stable, inelastic paid parking prices [1[2]]. Due to these regulations, we cannot substitute limited space away from off-street parking towards e.g. housing. [1] http://shoup.bol.ucla.edu/PricingParkingByDemand.pdf [2] https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Funnel-plot-for-the-pric...

The research you link to discusses pricing for parking spaces, but nowhere does it state that eliminating parking spaces doesn't increase the price of what little parking is left.

The idea that developers being responsible for providing adequate parking would mean that we can't have adequate space housing is a new argument, but not a compelling one. Clearly jacking up the prices for on-street parking means we'd have more money and more space for other things, but that doesn't solve the problem of there being too many cars on the road or eliminate the need for people to keep and drive cars.

While the one paper you linked to suggests that higher prices could help reduce the demand for cars and driving, it also explicitly states that price of vehicle ownership is only one of many variables that has an affect those demands. The availability of viable alternatives to car ownership/use is the one being ignored here.

If I will die unless I go to the hospital every week for 6 months for chemo treatment and the only way to get there is by driving, the amount they'll charge me for parking isn't really a factor until it becomes so high that I can't afford to get the treatment I need. The fact that I also can't get to work, the grocery store, the doctor's office, the pharmacy, my kid's school, or the homes of my friends family without a car means that I'm still going to need to own (and still need a place to park) my car even if I could afford to uber my cancer-ridden body to and from the hospital every single week. (this is purely an example, I'm not, to my knowledge, cancer-ridden)

You simply can't solve the problem of people needing to own and park cars by only reducing the number of available parking spaces. Reducing the number of parking spaces is something that should be done only once viable alternatives are established.

Re: U.S. cities opt to ditch their off-street parking minimums

#293

Post by ZoomerCretin »

I'm surprised no one has mentioned the most important improvement from eliminating parking minimums:

https://www.planetizen.com/news/2023/11/126192-parking-refor...

Parking spaces are outrageously expensive. By allowing housing to be built without far more parking than is needed, the cost of rent is lower by several hundred dollars (read: $200-$1000) a month because of how expensive land is, and how much land/space is required for cars.

Re: U.S. cities opt to ditch their off-street parking minimums

#294

Post by dylan604 »

kube-system wrote: post #288
dylan604 wrote: post #277

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On the chance they were meaning to reply to me, no, I don't think a Zipcar is going to help me carry sheets of plywood or other similar large items. However, I'm not familiar with Zipcar, so I just took a look. Near me, there's a Kia Soul or a Toyota Prius. Nope, neither of those helpful for my needs. I'll continue with the "hey buddy...got another sixer-request", although, some requests become cases.

Yeah, I replied to the wrong person. Anyway, I don't see many people buying full sheets of plywood in dense cities, but if I wanted to do that, I wouldn't be going to my neighborhood hardware store with a Zipcar, because it doesn't have a lumber yard. I'd go to the Home Depot a few miles away, and I'd use their rental truck.

that's yet another reason city dwelling in a multi-tenant building is just not conducive for many people. I couldn't imagine not being able to work on projects. Of course, having the desire/inclination of having that kind of hobby is probably something a city slicker just isn't going to do. I have wood working and machine working tools that I'm just going to lean towards not being allowed by whatever building rules.

I love how those not wanting the city life is just looked down upon by those that are. But that's okay, I think those that live in the city are kind of just weird for similarly petty things

Re: U.S. cities opt to ditch their off-street parking minimums

#295

Post by autoexec »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #285
autoexec wrote: post #250

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If they have no place to put them, they won't have them This is demonstrably false. People still need cars to get to where they need to go, like work, or their doctor's office, or the grocery store. There are no alternatives. Public transportation doesn't get them there. Ubering everywhere is more expensive than owning a car. Until alternatives exist, not having a car isn't an option. If you've been to cities where…

> If you've been to cities where there isn't enough street parking to meet demand you'd know that even when people have no place to park their cars they still keep cars No? They park them outside the city centre. Or they rent them. You're speaking as if Austin is the first city in the world--or even America--to do this.

> No? They park them outside the city centre.

If you live in an apartment complex inside the city centre, parking outside of it won't help you. If you live in an apartment complex outside of it and there's not enough parking spots to leave your car while you sleep you still have the same problem.

> Or they rent them.

Most people can't afford to uber everywhere. Should the poors not be allowed to go to work or the doctors office?

Austin is only one example, but any city without enough parking to meet demand has these same well-documented problems. Please tell me which cities in America have ditched off-street parking while doing nothing else to reduce people's dependence on cars and had no problems as a result.

Re: U.S. cities opt to ditch their off-street parking minimums

#296

Post by aegypti »

swalling wrote: post #194

This isn't really a new trend, Texas is just a laggard because it is an unusually car-dependent state. Most major cities have been trending toward eliminating parking minimums, at least in downtown cores. Here's a map from 2015: https://www.strongtowns.org/journal/2015/11/18/a-map-of-citi... And one updated as of 2021: https://parkingreform.org/resources/mandates-map/

> Austin is the biggest city in the country to eliminate its parking mandates citywide

> Austin removed parking requirements for its downtown area a decade ago

Here’s an article from 2024 :) https://www.npr.org/2024/01/02/1221366173/u-s-cities-drop-pa...

Re: U.S. cities opt to ditch their off-street parking minimums

#297

Post by JumpCrisscross »

autoexec wrote: post #295
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #285

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If you've been to cities where there isn't enough street parking to meet demand you'd know that even when people have no place to park their cars they still keep cars No? They park them outside the city centre. Or they rent them. You're speaking as if Austin is the first city in the world--or even America--to do this.

> No? They park them outside the city centre. If you live in an apartment complex inside the city centre, parking outside of it won't help you. If you live in an apartment complex outside of it and there's not enough parking spots to leave your car while you sleep you still have the same problem. > Or they rent them. Most people can't afford to uber everywhere. Should the poors not be allowed to go to work or the doc…

> live in an apartment complex inside the city centre, parking outside of it won't help you

Of course it does. You use city transportation systems when in the centre. And you take an Uber or train to your parking lot when you need to drive a bunch.

> Should the poors not be allowed to go to work or the doctors office?

Versus not being able to afford housing?

That's the tradeoff. There is no free lunch. Increasing space dedicated to parking raises the cost of housing. It also reduces density, thereby reducing wealth and increasing transit times.

Re: U.S. cities opt to ditch their off-street parking minimums

#298

Post by autoexec »

dragonwriter wrote: post #280
autoexec wrote: post #270

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The contentious part is that the presence of the freedom to build housing without parking requirements does nothing to reduce the demand for autos. Why would it? Without alternatives to cars as a means to get people to where they need to go, people will still require cars. As long as people are required to own and drive cars not having enough available parking does nothing to help reduce the amount of cars being ow…

> Why would it? Because it would both enable and incentivize development patterns where people need cars less. > Without alternatives to cars as a means to get people to where they need to go, people will still require cars. Dense mixed-use development puts more of the places people need to go in places that don't require cars to get to them. (It also mass transit to other places more viable.) Your focussed on altern…

> Because it would both enable and incentivize development patterns where people need cars less.

As for enabling, nothing stops developers from doing that now. As for incentivizing them, if they can make more money not meeting most people's needs then that's what they'll do. This is also why so many cities have a huge amount of luxury housing available, but a massive lack of affordable housing. What makes developers the most money isn't always what's best for a city.

> Dense mixed-use development puts more of the places people need to go in places that don't require cars to get to them. (It also mass transit to other places more viable.) Your focused on alternatives ti cars to get to a fixed set of locations, but a big point of dense mixed-use development is to provide alternative locations.

I agree with this, but none of these cities are creating mixed-use development or building out their mass transit systems to link them. They're getting rid of parking spaces without any of those things in place.

> The reason people need cars is that the places they need to be a far away because of development patterns; one of the key features of development patterns that causes this is...the space use created by parking requirements.

A reason people need cars is because things are far away. Another reason is that there are no other means to get anywhere else. As long as those things are true, people still need cars. As long as people still need cars, they need places to put them.

The space use created by parking requirements would be a nice problem to solve, but it can't (and shouldn't) be addressed until the requirement of owning cars has been dealt with. When people no longer require cars, we can reduce the amount of space we've set aside for housing them.

Re: U.S. cities opt to ditch their off-street parking minimums

#299

Post by kube-system »

dylan604 wrote: post #294
kube-system wrote: post #288

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, I replied to the wrong person. Anyway, I don't see many people buying full sheets of plywood in dense cities, but if I wanted to do that, I wouldn't be going to my neighborhood hardware store with a Zipcar, because it doesn't have a lumber yard. I'd go to the Home Depot a few miles away, and I'd use their rental truck.

that's yet another reason city dwelling in a multi-tenant building is just not conducive for many people. I couldn't imagine not being able to work on projects. Of course, having the desire/inclination of having that kind of hobby is probably something a city slicker just isn't going to do. I have wood working and machine working tools that I'm just going to lean towards not being allowed by whatever building rules.…

I've lived both lifestyles; it goes both ways. I like metal working and wrenching on cars, which was easy to do in my suburban garage, but I also like riding a bike to run my errands, walking to the bar, and regularly going to highly specialized meetups, which is easier to do in a city. There's no one lifestyle that's perfect for everything.

Re: U.S. cities opt to ditch their off-street parking minimums

#300

Post by autoexec »

brewdad wrote: post #225
autoexec wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It'd be a good start! It'll take a massive increase in public transportation infrastructure, and a long and slow redesign of our cities and how we live to fix the mess the auto-industry has put us in. It's a transition that's long overdue, but the reality of the situation now is that people still need their cars. Making sure that people have something to fall back on before we take their cars away from them or remove…

Many households have more than one car per driver. With WFH many of these cars sit largely unused. We went down to being a one car family over a year ago and it has rarely been an issue. It requires a little bit of planning. "Hey I need the car on Thursday. Does that work for you?" Otherwise, a second car would mostly only get used because "Well, it hasn't been driven in a while".

I agree that WFH is a game changer here. Households in that situation are incentivized to get rid of excess vehicles since they cost money to maintain, license, and insure. With downtown office spaces and the nearby businesses that depend on them being abandoned, a lot of parking space can be reclaimed there too.
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